Little Wolf Girl
by Lurid sleep
Summary: A young San and her brothers have never seen humans before, and despite their mother's warnings decide to go out in search of one. When San sees a human for the first time, they turn out to be more terrifying than anything she could have imagined.
1. Good Little Wolves

Three pups sat at the edge of a clearing. Far enough out from the wide open grass to remain hidden, but close enough to see what small creatures were brave enough to remain out in the open. They looked on hungrily at the dozen or so rabbits who had just come up above ground to feed. Their bellies would be full of sweet fresh grass. It would season their muscles like herbs, and knowing that made the pups' mouths water with anticipation.

All of the three pups had spent the day searching for a kill to make, having gone without meat all day. They were all of them becoming strong enough to chase down the smaller game of the forest. And in time, and with practice, they would be strong enough to keep the numbers of greater forest grazers at bay.

Since the start of this spring season, the pups had seen their sixth winter. Between the two eldest siblings, their ages differed only by mere minutes, while the youngest of them was perhaps only a few days younger. By now, a common wolf pup would have long been fully grown and ready to hunt larger game. However, such was not the case for the three pups at the edge of the open field. They were all of them the children of the god of wolves, and would spend much of their early years growing their wit as well as their teeth to be as sharp as their mother's. Therefore, it would take them all many more years to grow.

Two of the pups had by now just out grown all their baby fur. One pup had no fur at all, but a brown and messy bunch on the top of her head. She was oddly proportioned for a wolf, her lack of pearly white fur was not the strangest of her differences. Even now, she sat oddly beside her brothers, and found it easier to sit on her knees than sit on her feet as her brothers did. They spoke little of her deformities, Mother had fiercely scolded them once for teasing their sister for her bizarrely long legs, and the way she stood upright on them.

"I bet we could catch one." The youngest of the pups said suddenly, turning her bald face towards her brothers. She kept her voice down so as not to draw unwanted attention from their lunch, but did not fully disguise her excitement either. They glanced over at her, then to each other before shaking their heads.

"they're in the middle of an open field. They'll see us for sure." the eldest whined. Their hunts had yielded only disappointment for many days. The boys were discouraged by the unsuccessfulness of their many hunts, and seemed to be more detoured by the possible embarrassment of failure, than they were drawn by the promise of meat.

"yeah, we're already as close as we can get." agreed the other.

"What's with your attitudes? Only last season you two couldn't be persuaded out of chasing down anything that moved." San muttered.

"Yeah, but mother said we should hunt our food, not scare it all away. If we go home with empty stomachs just because we made a stupid decision, she won't ever trust us to go hunting with her." the oldest of the pups reminded them.

"Ichi's right, San. We'd be better off just looking for something easier, or waiting until one of them wanders off a little ways." Ni sighed, obviously not pleased with the idea of waiting.

"So you'd both rather just not eat at all? What do you think mother would say about that?" she snapped. "Come on, we need to learn to hunt for ourselves some time, don't we?"

Ichi's stomach growled, and he looked back over at the rabbits.

"Alright. What's the plan?"

The two brothers crouched side by side on the grass, their heads resting just above the ground. Ni's legs itched to chase, but he stilled himself only by remembering that San always had the best plans, so she was worth listening to for the moment.

The rabbits hadn't noticed them yet, just as they hoped. It was late enough in the afternoon that they were just careless enough to ignore the two specs of white fur in the distance. Any closer, however, and they'd be spotted for certain.

San stood on still on the opposite end of the clearing from her brothers, and hidden by the foliage. She picked up a small rock from the ground, and tossed it a mere few inches in the air above her palm to get a sense of its weight.

She knew from experience that alarming the rabbits from far away would only send them all running to the underground. The trick would be to get them to run towards the awaiting jaws of her brothers on the other side, and not to the safety of their warren.

San and her brothers had hunted rabbits before, usually with little success. The best of their hunts were when the prey wandered far from its home, and it was a simple matter for the three of them to chase down a single rabbit. At least, it was simple for her brothers to chase down a rabbit. She'd usually be the one lingering behind in the chase, only to catch up after the prey was captured, or fled to safety.

She clutched the stone tighter in her palm. Remembering her failures in previous hunts wouldn't help her here. Right now it didn't matter that she couldn't run as fast as her brothers… or that she couldn't bite as hard… or that her claws were thin and brittle.

She shook away the thought. This wasn't the time to feel sorry for herself. Besides, this time would be different. This time, she was doing something that her brothers couldn't, something she was good at. Right now, in order to be useful, she had to be smart.

She wound up her arm, and sent the rock flying out into the distance toward the burrow. She watched anxiously as it fell. Before the stone hit the ground, one rabbit stomped its foot on the ground, thumping loudly to alert the others. When their heads rose from the ground to see what the danger was, the rock hit the ground. Unable to see the danger, but startled by the sound of the rock falling, the rabbits scrambled about.

Before many of them could retreat underground, Ichi and Ni rose from the distance and sprinted towards the chaos. Each of them went different ways, searching for the weakest and most simple kill to make. With most of the rabbits running for safety and out of reach, it wasn't long before there was only one candidate left.

It was an old one, by the look of it. black and grey fur, not too scrawny, not too much fur either. It made a tempting meal, not that there was any other option on the menu for the pups.

As usual, San carelessly sprinted from her hiding place in the shadows of the trees to join her brothers in the hunt. She knew she risked the success of their hunt by racing onto the grass without thinking, but her instinct to chase got the better of her. Even if she cost her brothers their meal, she wanted to try to catch it.

In the end, it didn't make a difference. She was not near enough to frighten the prey, and certainly not near enough to catch it by the time her brothers had worn it down.

They chased it in circles until they finally snatched it up. Ichi held the small squirming animal in his mouth, then Ni stepped in and grabbed the rabbit by its haunches. They each pulled and twisted at their respective parts of the rabbit until its neck snapped, and then continued to pull at it playfully until they were tearing it into two bleeding halves.

San had reached them just then, catching her breath from the sprint it took to get to them, but doing her best to hide the sound of her heavy breathing. Fortunately, her brothers were too busy with their celebratory tug-of-war to pay her weariness any mind.

San reached out for what was left of the fresh kill, eager to taste the fresh meat of her labors. Ni pulled back from her reach, snapping off the small membrane that had tethered the two halves of the lapin together as he did so. He lowered his head and growled, with his prize still bleeding in his mouth.

"Oh no you don't! We eat first, we did all the work!" he growled, daring her to take it from him.

San narrowed her eyes and flashed her teeth at her brother in a cold icy snarl. She had no tail to raise in defiance, and could not pull back her ears in warning, but her facial expressions spoke all too well for her.

"Without me, we'd _all_ be hungry! Gimme my share, I earned it!"

"You weren't anywhere near us when we had to catch our food. Wait until I'm finished, then you can have the bits that are left." he taunted.

The young wolf pup tackled her brother then, crying out a little in rage before she slammed the full force of her weight into him, knocking him down with a yelp. The tail half of the rabbit that he'd had in his jaws fell to the ground when he was struck with the force of his sister's weight. She reached for it, and Ni scrambled from under her to snatch it back up.

Ichi, while startled by the fighting, was not surprised. Ni and San were the first to butt heads when things got to stressful for them. They usually fought over food when mother wasn't around to keep an eye on them. He did his best to ignore them and enjoy his half of the meal while his siblings rough-housed all over the forest floor.

Ni snapped his jaws at the morsel that lay just beyond his reach. Realizing that her brother would reach the scrap first, San hit the side of his shoulder with the side of her hand. He yelped, and San had just enough time to grab the meat laying a little ways out of reach.

Ni saw how close she was to taking the last of the food, and at the last second stretched out his neck just far enough to bite his teeth down on his sister's arm. She grunted out of pain when he bit, but did her best to ignore the force of his teeth on her limb long enough to bring the dead rabbit to her hungry mouth. As she pulled back her arm, however, her brother bit down harder, and only relaxed his hold by a fraction when she outstretched her arm again.

They remained at an impasse until Ichi finished his half of the rabbit. He would have sat back to watch how events would unfold without involving himself, but just then he caught a scent in the air that distracted him from the fight, and he rose from off the grass to meet the source.

Ichi looked up at the enormous figure lumbering toward the three of them. Despite her size, she didn't shake the ground when she stepped, her paws quiet and careful with each step. Ichi ran up to her, his tail wagging low as he tried to jump up and lick her muzzle to greet her. She lowered her face to him, accepting the affectionate gesture, and then stepped closer to the other two puppies.

The two trouble makers only looked up at her when she stood over them, casting a shadow. They exchanged glances, but refused to let go until the other did first. It was San who spoke finally.

"It's his fault. Ni was gonna eat my third of the rabbit." she blamed. Ni let go of her arm then, leaving several red puncture wounds on his sister's arm. San ran her other hand over the injury, grateful for the relief, but still glaring daggers at her brother as he denied her accusation.

"It's _her _fault for not being there when we killed it! If she wants to eat, she should at least be able to help more! She's not as useful as we are when we hunt, she's such a runt!"

"I am _not _a runt!" San shouted, dropping the meat, and tackling her brother again. They began to fight, but it didn't last long before their mother broke in.

"Oh, cut it out. I'm not in the mood to wait for you two to kill each other today." She growled. Obediently, the pups stepped a little ways apart, but continued to shoot each other nasty glares as their mother spoke.

"When I told you to learn to take care of yourselves, it wasn't just because I was sick of feeding you. I _can't _look after you three every minute of every day like I could before. Every day the forest becomes more and more dangerous, which means you three need to start growing up. What do you think would happen if a human showed up today and I wasn't around to protect you?"

The mention of humans brought a familiar chill to the pups. They'd only heard stories about the fabled humans that apparently cut down whole full grown trees, and rode on the backs of other animals. Of course mother had never brought her children with her to hunt down the humans that tried to travel through domain of the spirit of the forest, much to Ichi's relief, and Ni's disappointment.

Mother often told stories of her encounters with humans to the pups, stories about how they came to trap animals from their mountain, and cut down trees at the edge of the forest. And often her siblings would ask about them; what they looked like, what the smelled like, how they sounded, and such. It was only natural that the pups should be curious about this evil that apparently threatened their home. But San found curiously that Mother often ignored the questions they asked. It was almost like Mother didn't want them to know about humans, which seemed suspicious to San.

San was actually beginning to suspect that humans weren't real at all. What other explanation was there for why Mother never wanted to tell her about them? They must have been false. Were they real, then surely Mother would want her to know what they looked like, right? Not that she doubted her mother's fears were justified, she just doubted that these "humans" could be the source of her fears. No, more likely mother was worried about something much worse uprooting the trees, and eating all the food, something that she didn't want San and her brothers knowing about.

"Every day you get older, and every day you must prepare to be strong enough to survive against what will surely threaten our lives one day. If you three can't learn to cooperate for even one day, without my constant attention, and without picking fights over scraps of food, then how can any of you live up to the responsibility of protecting our home?"

Ni quietly huffed, but seemed to take his mother's words seriously. Although he could hardly see how he'd deserved this lecture just because he'd antagonized his sister a little bit.

San was quiet for a moment. Although she doubted whatever it was that truly jeopardized their lives, she could tell that her mother sincerely worried for their wellbeing. "Don't worry, Mother. I'm going to be strong enough to hunt with you someday!" San said, doing her best to reassure her mother with a smile. Perhaps once she was more grown up her mother would trust her to help defend their home from humans, if that really was what threatened their home.

The wolf god seemed to consider something before responding. "Yes, San. When you're old enough, and strong enough, I will take you with me to hunt the humans." she said. But something about the way she spoke seemed uncertain; as though she was unsure whether she would be able keep that promise.

San read her tone to suggest that her mother doubted that she could ever be strong enough to hunt with her, and her own smile faded. It stung to think that her mother felt that way, especially because San knew all too well how disadvantaged she was compared to her brothers. She hung her head slightly, and looked away. Her mother did not fail to notice her obvious dissatisfaction, but said nothing about it.

"But for now," their mother went on, "all of you need to learn to work together, like a pack of your own, before I can trust you three to fight humans."

The pups looked from one to another as they considered this. Each of them could handle the playful scraps and brawls between each other, but especially at their young age, it was difficult to picture themselves fighting a powerful enemy, especially one as powerful as Mother made the humans out to be.

"Now, with having that said," she reached her head down to the grass and picked up the half-rabbit that the pups had nearly completely forgotten. Without even bothering to crunch it into smaller pieces between her teeth, she swallowed it all whole with no difficulty. "If you two are going to act like troublemakers, then you're not going to eat."

"But that's not fair!" San whined, as Ni groaned in frustration.

"No, it's not. What _is _fair, is you two getting along sharing the kill like good little wolves. Remember that next time. I'm not raising a tribe that fights over meat like a bunch of fools." she growled. She turned to leave, and the pups followed her closely behind on their way home, Ni and San glaring daggers at each other the whole way.

Their den was high up on the mountain. They lived on a rocky slope overlooking miles and miles of the forest. San had once nearly fallen from the cliffside, but was much better at climbing than her brothers, and when Mother came to rescue her, she had proudly announced her triumph over the smooth stone surface.

It was evening when they reached it. San's legs had tired somewhere along the way, and Ichi had offered to carry her, but determined to prove herself as capable as her brothers before the day was out, she had declined his offer, and opted to risk blistering her frail feet instead.

She collapsed onto the floor of the cave, and rubbed the bottoms of her feet to get the soreness out. It occurred to her that she might try to wear something to protect her feet, similar to the short deerskin dress she wore. She promised herself footwear the next time she killed and ate.

The hunger pains in her belly had nearly subsided, but San knew in the morning it would only get worse. And however much she would have liked to deny it, she needed her brothers to help her hunt. Maybe it would be smart to apologize so that they would be on good terms once again when she needed them.

"I'm sorry that I hit you." she muttered. Ni winced, remembering the force of her punch to his shoulder. She had this strange way of scratching that complimented her short, delicate claws well; she would ball her hand up into a fist, and slam it against him like it was a rock. She had developed many odd ways to do things that better suited her strange shape, and her methods of attack were no exception.

"I'm sorry… that I bit you, and called you a runt." Ni replied sincerely.

The puppies curled up on the stone floor together, and after making sure that they hadn't been followed, the wolf god laid down beside her children.

To San, who had no fur of her own, it was nice to lay down with her family, surrounded by their familiar scent, and to be warm and safe. The ripped and tattered deerskin she'd made last winter was little substitute for real fur.

She'd thought for a long time that if she just waited long enough, she'd grow fur like her brothers, but it seemed that she had no such luck. Still, she was convinced somehow that when she grew up she might resemble her mother more closely.

Her dreams that night were filled with freshly killed rabbit that she'd hunted all by herself. And in her dreams her teeth were sharp, and her legs were strong, and all the animals of the forest feared and admired her.

**Since there aren't any canon names for San's brothers, I named them after the Japanese numbers for 'one' and 'two', since 'san' means 'three'. I know it's silly, but it made sense at the time.**


	2. Human Scent

The pups were making their way across a river. The hungry San and Ni had persuaded their brother to go hunting again with them early in the morning. They'd made it far from their den by this time, but would not venture beyond the mountain.

"What do you think they look like?" Ichi asked. The three had spent their walk in relative silence, and with nothing but the search for food to distract them, they're bellies seemed to growl more loudly. Ichi knew that the hunger was worst on his siblings, and took it upon himself to distract them from their hunger with conversation of some sort.

"They must be huge if mom has to spend so much time fighting them. They must be as tall as her." Ni answered immediately, leaping from one rock to the next. He had obviously considered this question many times before.

"They're probably ugly, too." Ichi added. He'd already made it across the stream, and was now waiting patiently for his siblings to follow.

"yeah, maybe." San agreed. Perhaps humans were so ugly that Mother couldn't describe them, and that was why she never had. It seemed possible to her at the time, but she still half suspected that humans were nothing but a scary story.

With no evidence to work with, she let her childish imagination conjure up the most appalling forms it could to represent a human figure. Crooked teeth, rough skin, scrawny legs, and overgrown claws, were all traits she associated them with. Creepy, but no match for a wolf, obviously.

Ni leapt over the next few rocks, but when he neared the land and saw that his sister was still behind, he stopped to let her catch up.

"I think Mother worries too much." Ni admitted. "No one can steal a whole forest, not even a human. What are they going to do, swipe it away in the dead of night and leave us stranded in a desert to live?" he chuckled, but was still half serious.

"They won't 'steal' it, at least not in the way that a crow would steal meat from a carcass. They would burn down and kill everything nice, every tree, and all the grass, and then replace it with something cold and filthy, so that nothing can live here but them." Ichi clarified, agitated by his brother's misunderstanding.

There was a thick silence for a moment as the wolves considered his words. Being children, it was hard for them to imagine everything that they knew going away forever. But to say that they did not understand the threat would be untrue.

Whatever was endangering the forest had Mother worried, and that was reason enough to fear it. The young wolves knew the danger, they just didn't quite comprehend it at the time.

"I know that…" Ni muttered, remembering Mother say the same thing a few times before. "I just think it's a bit… improbable." He continued on to the other side of the river where his brother was, and waited for San to follow so they could continue on their search for food.

San's attention had been drawn to the rattling sound across the river, where three kodoma gathered. She hadn't noticed them until the hush swept over her and her brothers. The noises that the spirits made were usually pushed to the back of her mind, but they stood out in the awkward silence like blood on snow.

"I'm not sure if any sort of animal could do that." San admitted as she carefully stepped across the rocks, following her brothers to the other side. "I mean, even if they can cut down trees, I don't understand how they could destroy our home. I mean, the forest is huge, and the spirit of the forest is looking out for us, so how could any kind of creature be powerful enough to threaten that?"

"I don't know." Ichi said. "Let's hope we never have to find out."

Gradually, they all reached the other side of the river, and continued on their way. Their discussion had not lifted their spirits, but it had distracted San and Ni from the hunger in their bellies for a short time.

As soon as they had started on their way again, Ni suddenly spotted a rodent in the distance, beside a tree, and raced toward it before his siblings could catch up. The animal heard him coming as soon as he started running, and was high up in the safety of the upper branches well before Ni even reached the tree.

It was a squirrel of some kind, with dark furred rings going down its tail, and long fox-like ears. It raced up the tree and out of reach before he could catch it. The wolf pup leaned up against the tree as if to climb it, pressing his front paws against the trunk, and barked angrily at the creature.

"It's no use. We could have come up with a plan to catch it, if you hadn't chased after it on your own." San scolded him once she and Ichi had caught up.

"You always come up with the plans and tell us what to do, can't I hunt my own way every once in a while?" Ni snapped, his anger only fueled by his hunger pains.

"Well, at least we would have eaten…" Ichi sighed, glancing irately at his brother.

After a few moments of barking and hissing, Ni realized his efforts were wasted. He couldn't reach the fox-squirrel, and it wouldn't come down; they were at an impasse. But at least with it standing not too far away, he could interrogate it.

"Hey, squirrel," Ni barked. "have _you_ ever seen a human? What do they look like?"

The three pups all looked up at the rodent with interest. There was a chance that some animal in the forest had seen a human, perhaps this one had. That chance to know alone perked their interest.

As expected, the squirrel did not speak as well as the children of the god wolf, and it was difficult to understand. It hesitated only a second, then, so quickly it went unnoticed by the others, it shifted its glare to San. When it did speak, it shrieked and hissed even more loudly than before.

"Foolish puppies! Foolish! Foolish! The enemy is among you! Foolish! Foolish!" it screamed, scratching its claws against the bark of the branch it stood on as it angrily shifted and turned.

"Let's go. It's only going to scare away everything in the forest." Ichi sighed, walking away.

"What do you mean the enemy is among us? Are there humans in the forest?" San asked. If this squirrel had seen a human, that would mean that they were real after all. But the squirrel only hissed in response, and climbed further up the tree and out of view.

"Rude. We were only going to eat him." Ni mumbled as he let his front paws return down onto the earth, and followed his brother away. San looked back at the fox-squirrel for a moment, and then trailed on after her brothers.

Animals sometimes said strange things after they narrowly avoided being eaten; it was probably nothing to worry about after all. But still she had to wonder.

"What if… there are humans in the forest?" San asked after a long silence between the three of them.

"Then Mother will kill them. Don't worry San, it was probably only trying to scare us away." Ichi said.

"But if there were more than one human in the forest… maybe one that Mother didn't know about, shouldn't we find it?" Ni suggested.

"No way. You _know_ what she'd say if she knew we tried to fight humans on our own. What if one of us got hurt?" Ichi said, trying to talk sense into his reckless brother.

"I didn't say we should fight them, I just said we should find them. There's no danger in _finding_ a human, is there? What do you think, San?" Ni asked, trying to win his sister over to his side of the dispute.

San thought hard for a moment. It seemed to her that she was always making the decisions among the three of them. She wondered whether it was because they respected her decision making abilities, or just because they argued with each other so often and needed a tie breaker.

"If humans are as dangerous as Mother tells us, we'd be asking for trouble to go looking for one. Besides, I'm hungry, and I want to eat, not follow some human around." she said finally, doing her best not to sound like she wanted to see a human.

Ni was visibly disappointed that his sister hadn't sided with him, but dropped the subject at once, knowing her mind was made up. The puppies were quiet once more, and focused their attention on the forest, in search of their next meal.

* * *

><p>They followed the scent trail of a wild goat down the hillside, and did not speak to each other at all as they tracked it. Her brothers had a better sense of smell than she did, and let that be their guide, but San had a better eye for the tacks made on the short grass, and the three relied on her vision when their noses failed them.<p>

It was midday when they neared the end of the trail, by this time they could already smell the beast from where they were, but another, less familiar scent tickled their noses and made the pups wary.

"We should at least check it out." Ni said, in a low voice.

"I don't know… it could be something dangerous that got to our goat first." Ichi supposed.

"You aren't as hungry as we are! You ate yesterday, and we didn't, so of course you'd be willing to ignore this chance for us to grab a meal! Come on, San. We don't know for sure if it's dangerous, let's at least go check." Ni begged.

San's nose wasn't as good as theirs, but she was sure she didn't know what she was smelling now any better than they did. It was just a smell, it shouldn't have scared her, but remembering their earlier conversation about humans that day only made her all the more wary of strangeness.

"San, if you go with me to check it out, I promise that I'll listen to you from now on, and I'll share all the kills we make." Ni said as she contemplated her stance on the matter, trying to bargain her over to his side.

"You should be doing that anyway!" Ichi growled. "You can't make this a trade, that's not fair!"

"Alright, but we're just going in there for our food. We won't stay a second longer than we have to, and we won't pay any mind to the smell until we're fed." San decided. Ichi grumbled nervously, but didn't argue.

They went on tracking the goat, making sure to keep quiet the whole way. Occasionally, their paws would press down on the ground too hard and crush a leaf, or roll a rock over the ground in such a way that anything listening closely would have been startled. Their footfall was not yet as practiced as their Mother's when stalking, and it was for that reason she did not hunt with them.

Perhaps if this hunt were successful, the pups could return to their mother with the stink of goat on their mouths and she would see fit to chase bigger, more substantial game with them.

They closed in on the goat, and found that the beast was distracted. It fumbled and stomped on top of something. It was difficult to see clearly through the bushes and branches what the animal was so invested in, and the wolves shifted their attention from their prey, to the thing it stood on, and back again.

San assumed that whatever had the goat's attention was also the source of the strange unsettling smell. She exchanged uneasy glances with her brothers. Although Ni was usually the most eager hunter among them, he was reluctant to approach the strange thing, and left the other two just as ill at ease.

Realizing that her brothers would not make a move without her first, San crept closer to their prey. Her brothers slowly followed her lead, each spreading out along the outside edge of their covering.

Now that she could see the goat and what it stood on my clearly, she hesitated. She lightly turned her head and shifted where she crouched to better understand the shape of the strange thing. She would rather know what the thing was before she charged over toward it. What if it was dangerous?

Upon closer inspection, it looked like multiple things. Some bits there, and some other bits around it, but they all were somewhat flat, and piled up under the goat's feet. They looked like skins, all tanned and washed, eerily similar to the deerskin dress she wore.

The strangeness of the whole thing made San reluctant to near the goat. If not for her appetite, and her brothers who were counting on her, she might have let the beast go. But she was ravenous, and she wouldn't ditch her brothers when they needed her help, and she certainly wouldn't be called a coward when she returned home.

After a quick nod to her brothers, she burst out of the underbrush and chased after the goat, who'd broken into a dash a moment later. San ran as fast as she could, fueled by her hunger and desperation, while her prey was fueled by the will to live.

In a sprint, she was as fast as her brothers. But she couldn't keep up the speed for as long as they could. Her only chance to catch the beast on her own was to be as fast as possible, and keep the hunt from dragging on.

Ichi and Ni were wisely saving their energy, and were a little ways behind San, though they could easily catch up to her. They patiently watched, waiting for their sister to slow the beast down so they could go in for the kill.

Almost close enough to touch it, she reached out, to grab its legs, or scratch it, or anything to stop it from running. She almost caught it at first, but the beast was much quicker than her, and soon she was left far behind it, running more and more slowly, and panting heavily. Her brothers had torn on after the goat, leaving her behind, and would likely keep on running until they brought it down, or succumbed to weariness.

San slowed to a stop, still breathing fast. Her heart was beating against her ribs like a bird trying to break free of its shell. She tried to go on, but it hurt so much to move at that point, she thought she might drop dead. She sat down on the ground for a short time.

Her brothers had no trouble running. Their legs were strong, and could carry them swiftly for miles if they so desired. San's legs were not strong. Her legs tired after such shorter distances. She would never run as fast as they could.

Panting still, she tried to stand, and stood. She hobbled in the direction her brothers went, holding her side with one hand, and still breathing deeply.

Maybe if she looked more like the rest of her family did, she could run faster. But it was not to be. For whatever reason, she looked the way she did, and it was becoming more and more obvious to her with each passing day that that was likely never to change.

She'd never run as fast as her brothers could, never grow sharp teeth, and she would definitely never be a normal wolf.

She felt a wetness dripping down from her face and onto her deerskin dress. She quickly rubbed her eyes of tears. She'd never known another wolf to cry. Not even her brothers. They expressed sorrow, but never in that way. The tears only made her feel more abnormal. And that made her cry even more.

She heard the footfall of her brother, and lifted her head to see Ichi. He'd abandoned the hunt, and would likely face Ni's scorn for it later.

She wiped her face and sniffled to stifle the tears.

"Get on." he said sternly, tipping his head toward his back.

"What for?" she asked him quietly, so as to not draw attention to the quivering of her voice.

Ichi didn't answer her, but nudged the back of her knee gently, and she fell onto his back. Instinctively, she settled just behind his shoulders, and held onto the fur behind his neck for support.

Like her, He was only a pup, and was not used to carrying her weight along with his own, but he did not complain, and he did not show signs of strain as he carried her.

She had to steady herself often, and accidently pulled too tightly on her brother's fur more than once, but Ichi did not say a word.

She could so easily feel his feet running underneath her, and if she concentrated hard enough, she could even imagine that it was her own feet carrying her now. The fast air moving past her face quickly dried her tears.

But the thrill of running was short lived. They slowed to a walk after a while, when the scent ran cold and Ichi became weary. Still, San rode atop her brother. The additional height made her feel more confident, even when Ni returned to them.

His muzzle was clean of blood, and considering the look on his face, it wasn't because he'd wiped it clean after eating. Without the help of his siblings, he'd failed to bring down the goat. Ni, though very hungry, would not have blamed his sister alone for their failure that day.

Ni didn't say anything when he found them. Perhaps he was too upset by their lack of assistance during the hunt, and did not wish to speak with them now. Or maybe he smelled the tears on his sister's face, and thought it best not to distress her. It was unclear which.

Ni didn't say a word about how Ichi let San ride on his back, either. Though he could have easily shamed his sister for needing to be carried, he recognized how meaningful the gesture must have been to San.

* * *

><p>The silence between the three puppies was hardly ever uneasy. But as they returned to the clearing where they'd originally found the goat, they began to remember the fears they'd had early that morning.<p>

The mixture of hunger, disappointment, and fear, made a foul feeling that weighed down their hearts, but nonetheless they were still curious enough to investigate, and so they went back to carefully investigate source of the smell.

Besides the occasional twitching of the ear, or careful sniff of the breeze, the pups were not unsettled. Ni pushed his nose into the pile of tanned hides, trying to place the scent.

San bravely picked through the pile of hides, and found strange things made out of the wood of trees. Before she dug deeper into the pile, her attention was caught by a hole in the ground beside the pile, which held charcoal and bits of wood within it.

"I think this was a fire." San said, poking at the coals, and finding them cold. None of them had seen a fire before, but they all suddenly remembered Mother telling them how humans brought fire with them everywhere they went to burn down forests with.

"You don't think that... this stuff belongs to a human, do you?" Ni asked, stepping back from the pile a little ways.

"We should tell Mother, there's no telling where the humans are now." Ichi said, starting to leave.

"Wait a minute." San said, sifting through the pile. If she left now, she'd be left with even more questions about humans that she knew her mother wouldn't indulge her with.

"Are you crazy? What if they smell us?!" Ni protested, his tail low and his ears laid back.

"We'll be fine. Just keep a look out, I want to see what else is here." she said, paying little mind to her brother's distress.

Her hand scraped against something sharp underneath the pelt, and she let out a short, startled shriek that made her brothers jump. She drew back her hand, and after licking off the blood from the cut, reached her other hand in to find the thing that hurt her.

"What was that?! Are you ok, San? What hurt you?!" Ni asked franticly, cautiously stepping toward her.

After more carefully reaching into the pile, her hand found the thing that had cut her. Her fingers found a dull end of the thing, curled around it, and brought it out into the light for her to see.

It was perfectly shaped to fit in her hand, as if it was created for that very purpose. The sharp end, the one that had cut her, reminded her of a fang, only it was sharper. It was slightly curved, and reflected light like water.

If it were not for the smell it carried, she would have taken it home with her. She wanted it, not despite how dangerous it could be, but because of that. It seemed so alien, and yet so appropriate for her. If she had something like this back when she was chasing after that goat, she might very well have at least done it some harm and slowed it down.

"We need to go home, San. There's no telling when the humans will be back." Ichi told her unwaveringly. She nodded finally, and reluctantly left the knife where she found it. It was beautiful, but it stank of humans, and so it wasn't worth keeping.

They left the human things behind them, and headed home. All the while, San wondered about the things she saw at the human place. What was the purpose of the fire? Why was the knife so sharp? And most of all, how did the humans know how to skin and tan the hides of other animals?

San had been convinced up until now that she was the only animal in the whole world who'd figured out how to make wearable material out of dead things. She'd learned out of necessity, but what use were the skins of other animals to a human?

It troubled her to know that humans were similar to her in a way. It felt wrong to share even a single quality with them, knowing what they were like. But all the same, the weather was getting colder and colder by the day, and it would be silly to go without what little warmth she had just to be different.

A howl from their mother rang across the mountain. They returned it a few seconds later, assuring her that they would be home soon.

"Who will tell her about what we found?" Ichi asked his siblings, as they began walking again.

"We should all tell her, but I'll go first." Ni volunteered.

San said nothing, but nodded once in agreement. Her silence caught the attention of her brothers, and so did the way she walked. She favored her left foot, and walked partially on the sides of her feet.

"Are your feet sore again?" Ni asked, sounding a little bit more annoyed than he really was.

San looked away from him and shrugged, her shoulders slumping slightly when she did so. Ichi nudged her arm, and gestured toward his back. Reluctantly, she climbed up on him and settled behind his shoulder blades.

Ni walked just ahead of them, making a face, and not speaking a word for the longest time until he couldn't hold it in any longer. "You don't have to show off like that. I'm strong enough to carry San too, you know!" he growled half-heartedly.

San smiled to herself, glad that her need to be carried had become a competition and not an insult.

As the three neared their home, they could smell their dinner. With growling stomachs and wagging tails (all except for San, who had no tail) they climbed the hillside up to their den, and nearly forgot all about what had frightened them so at the base of their mountain home.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Sorry about the late update. I'll try to write faster. Hope you've all enjoyed so far! And thanks to everyone who reviewed.<strong>


	3. Wolf Mother's Scorn

Moro's children greeted her eagerly. They nuzzled and licked their mother's face, and once their greeting was complete they dove teeth first into the deer she'd hunted for them.

The rabbits and mice that the pups could sometimes catch on their own were nothing compared to the kills their mother could make. With a meal of that size, the appetites of all three of the ravenous young wolves was soon satisfied.

They made short work of the carcass, and soon much of the meat was gone. When their bellies were full, they licked the blood from off their faces. Ichi and Ni fought playfully over a femur. Though they were young, and their teeth were small, their gnawing and pulling began to fracture the bone until at last it snapped in two.

San tore at the dead skin of the deer, and pulled off what would be good sized leather to make more clothes out of. She'd already decided that this skin would make her foot coverings. Thinking of her previous winters spent walking bare footed in the snow compelled her to work diligently.

And as San scraped the fat off of deer flesh, and her brothers chewed on bones, their mother was content to sit with them quietly. Moro had eaten a whole deer on her own before killing this one, so there was no need to use up the meat herself.

"Tell me, what have you three been up to today?" Moro asked, her voice a deep and rumbling growl.

The three young wolves briefly stopped what they'd been doing, and looked from one another, unsure now whether or not to tell her what they'd promised they would. They suspected the news might upset her, maybe even enough to get the three of them into trouble.

"Mother, we found something strange in the forest today." Ni said quietly. He looked to his siblings, and away from Moro when he spoke.

"We weren't looking for it, but found it after chasing a goat through the wood." Ichi added, standing up next to his brother.

"It was probably nothing, but we thought… we thought it might have been a human thing." Ni finished.

Moro was still, and despite the news remained fairly composed. Her lips twitched, and her brows threatened to glare, but she did not rage as they thought she would. She quickly turned her gaze to San when she spoke, though San herself had said nothing.

"Did you see them?!" she growled. Though her harshness didn't seem directed solely on her daughter, the tone in her mother's voice forced San to look down and away from her.

"No, no we didn't see any humans. But we found weird stuff, and they smelled really strange. That's why we thought maybe they belonged to humans." Ni told her. "They weren't like anything we've ever seen before."

Moro eased up at that explanation. "You shouldn't be messing around with suspicious things. If a human even so much as _saw_ you…" she trailed off, glancing at San again. She sighed, and continued. "It's very important that you don't make yourselves known to the humans, at least until you're all old enough to defend yourselves, understand?" she growled lightly. Her children were quiet, but had clearly heard her.

"Now, with that said, I don't want you to wander around the boundaries of the mountain for a while. If humans are truly getting into the forest, then you shouldn't be messing around there." With that, the Wolf God stood up and began making her way down the steep hill that her children had just climbed their way up not half an hour ago.

Ni grumbled something about it being unfair, while Ichi followed after her, ears back and tail low. "I'm sorry, Mother." he said. "We shouldn't have been playing around where it was dangerous."

Moro stopped and turned to face her son. She towered over him, and if she wasn't his mother, she might have terrified him by her sheer size. "Don't worry about it. You did the right thing, coming back home and telling me. Though you should have brought up your finding earlier." she said, lowering her head to let him nuzzle her face. "There is… one more thing." she said, quieting her voice. "I want you and Ni to keep a close eye on your sister from now on."

"But why?" Ichi asked, glancing at his sister, who was attention was nicely focused on her work with the hide once again.

Moro paused only a moment in search of an adequate way to make her intentions clear to him. "Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I suspect it was very much San's idea to investigate the human things, wasn't it? She needs a voice of reason. And although the task of being San's voice of reason should not fall upon her brothers, she doesn't have anyone else."

"Well, it wasn't completely her idea, but… I suppose she did poke around a bit more than Ni and I." Ichi answered, thinking back to when San had been digging through the pile of human things.

"It's only in her nature I suppose, but she's much more inquisitive than you two are when it comes to new and strange things. She's… more likely than you or Ni to get into trouble that way." Moro explained.

Ichi nodded after a moment of thought. "I'll keep an eye on her."

"Thank you. Now, be good while I'm gone." she said, licking his forehead before she left him.

Ichi watched his mother leave in the direction he and his siblings had ventured in that morning. No doubt when she returned the forest would be short a few humans.

Never was there a worry that one day his mother would fail to subdue the humans, and never return home again. She never returned from hunting humans with more than a scratch or two. And she was obviously successful, because up until that day, the pups had never even seen a trace of human life.

That was because Mother was strong. She was a god, after all. The things that were a threat to her children didn't threaten her.

It should have been a comfort for him to think that one day he would grow up and be as strong as his mother, but instead it troubled him to know that he and his siblings were so helpless compared to their capable mother. It wasn't right that they were so weak while she was out defending them. How much longer would it be before they'd be old enough to fight alongside her?

He did not dwell on the thought, nor did he share the thought with his brother and sister when he finally approached them.

"Cut it out! You'll ruin the whole thing!" San shouted, swiping at the air where Ni's head had been a second ago.

"What's the problem? _You_ aren't eating the brains, why can't I?" he said, licking his lips.

"I told you, I need the brains for the hide, otherwise it'll rot! I know what I'm doing." she insisted, pulling the skins closer to herself, and further from her brother. "So stop licking them!"

Ni grouchily sat back, but obediently left her skins alone. "Don't you think it's weird that you make this stuff, San? None of the other animals do. It makes you strange."

She shook her head slowly. "I can't be the _only_ one. There's probably a few others who know how to do this." she rationalized. "In fact, I could teach you if you want."

"No thanks, I think they look silly." Ni declined. His comment earned him a stern glare from his sister.

When Ichi approached the pair, they looked up at him expectantly, and seemed to forget their dispute just long enough to interrogate their brother.

"What did Mother say?" San finally prompted when it was clear that Ichi would not indulge them without being inclined to do so.

"Nothing," Ichi said, knowing how San would feel to know that Mother had told him to look after her. "just that we should get to sleep."

She seemed satisfied enough with that answer. And both Ni and San proved to be just as tired as he was. And so it was a simple matter for the pups to drop the matter and head into the warm confines of their den for some well earned rest.

The wolves piled up together nearby the inner wall of the stone cave. They slept well that night, knowing that by morning, the forest would be short at least one more human. If Mother deemed the forest safe enough, then maybe when they woke she'd allow them to venture as far as they had yesterday once again.

* * *

><p>In the dead of the night, the Wolf God cleared away the corpses of the fresh kills she made. She wasn't hungry, having had eaten a whole deer earlier, but couldn't leave the bodies lying around where her children might find them later.<p>

Perhaps she wouldn't have minded so much if humans tasted good, but the foul taste that came with the human flesh did her stomach no favors. The muscles in her belly protested against the fullness, and she was sure she might throw up if she tried to stomach any more of the torn and rotting corpses.

The struggle was long over, but the bloodstains on the forest floor gave away all evidence of the fight. Since her children had evidently already gotten a whiff of human scent earlier that day, there was no point in clearing it away, or disguising it.

Against the foul smell of man, Moro caught another scent on the air. She lifted her head up and found the Boar God standing before her.

"Nago, what a surprise. I'm afraid I didn't smell you coming until just now." she said, cleaning off the blood from her face.

The giant boar didn't speak at first, but glanced at the remaining body on the ground before her. "Looks like you beat me to them." he snorted, stepping toward the dead human.

"Disappointed? They didn't put up much of a fight, if that makes you feel any better."

Nago scoffed, nudging what was left of the body with his snout. "There'll be more soon enough. Their numbers only grow the more of them we kill." he said, moving away from the corpse.

"Their families back home wonder why their husbands and fathers don't return, and then they come back here to find out why. As long as no human leaves this forest alive, there'll always be more." Moro said simply.

"That's true. And in time, they'll be so many that their numbers may overwhelm us. Even a single human may become a threat in time."

"What is this about, Nago?" Moro growled, impatiently.

"Will _all_ your children fight with us, Moro?" he asked.

Moro glared back at the boar. He spoke with such little respect, being a much younger god than she. Nago could learn a thing or two from his more mature counterpart of another mountain. "Of course they will, Nago. Someday. You can't expect me to put my own children at risk at their age, can you? They'll be grown before all this is over."

"I'm referring specifically to your 'daughter', Moro." he said, as if the term daughter was to be used loosely.

"What about her?" Moro snapped, digging her claws into the dirt and shooting a warning glare at the pig.

"Don't be angry, Moro. You know what I mean. The other gods have been saying the same thing. She's human. We can't guarantee that she'll still want to fight with us when she's grown up. She might even join them."

Moro looked away from Nago. She didn't speak for a moment. There was nothing she could say that he would understand. Her angrily twitching ears folded back against her head and were still. She'd heard similar criticisms before, concerning San. The beasts that dared to pass judgment on the girl were either eaten or harshly disciplined, and all ultimately silence. The gods were the only living creatures now who dared to question San's wolfishness.

"You need to face it sometime. I'll admit that the kid is… different, but she's still one of them deep down. Anyone can see that." He said, offering her no comfort.

"She isn't one of them. You're wrong." Moro growled, looking down at the dead human by her feet. "She hasn't been a human since before she could walk. She's been a wolf much longer than she was ever a human, and if any part of her is still human, I assure you it isn't the part that would betray her family."

Nago sighed and turned away, as if to finally leave. "If you're certain, then I'll trust you. You must understand though why it is that we find it hard to trust _her_."

"Her name is San, and she's my daughter. You should learn to treat her that way." Moro warned.

The boar shrugged off her warning and snorted once again. "She'd better act like your daughter when it matters."

* * *

><p>She returned to her puppies early in the morning. She licked the few scars she had, and lay down beside her puppies. Cleaning off her wounds, she remembered that she had neglected to tidy up her dirty children yesterday.<p>

San stirred in her sleep and rolled over onto her side, brushing her bare face and arms up against her mother's belly fur. Taking to Moro's warmth just as easily as she had the day she stole her away from her human parents.

The wolf god silently licked off the last remaining drops of human blood from off her snout. It took a few good licks to clean the hardened droplets from off her nose and mouth. The human scent clung to her teeth and tongue, no matter how much licking she did.

Gently pressing her nose to her puppies, she hoped that they would not carry the smell with them when they woke in the morning.

When Moro's snout made its way over to San's sleeping form, she was pleased to find little trace of any human smell upon her. San had always smelled differently from her brothers, but her scent was easily that of a wolf. She lived as a wolf, after all. She ate raw meat, ran through the mossy grass, and at night slept in a pile of fur. There was no way that San would not smell like a wolf, but it still pleased the Goddess that she did. Human smells did not suit her daughter.

Moro laid her enormous head down beside her deformed daughter. Even now that she was more grown, the girl could easily fit inside her jaws. But in a few years time, that would not be the case.

She was going to grow up, and learn, and one day she would understand what she was. The wolf god could delay the inevitable all she wanted, but the day that San would finally understand what she was, she wouldn't be the same anymore.

San suddenly shook in her sleep. Her legs twitched, as if to kick, or run. Was she dreaming of some wolfish thing? Her mother could only guess.

Moro closed her eyes, and let the gentle breathing and snoring of her small family put her to sleep.

* * *

><p>"Hold still." Moro growled, attempting to keep San in place by blocking her escape with her paw. San grumbled and impatiently stirred a little against her mother's cleaning tongue, but obediently did not struggle, as the dirt and grime was wiped clean from her hair and face.<p>

"I was already clean enough!" she protested when her mother finally released her.

"Don't complain. Your grooming already takes a quarter as long as it does for your brothers. You should be glad."

San pouted, but did not argue with her mother then. She ruffled up her own hair in the back to make it comfortable again, thinking that at least there was one good thing about having hardly any fur.

"Can we go and play _now_?" Ni asked, impatient with waiting any longer. He and Ichi had stayed behind with San, although they could have easily left to play without her.

"Go ahead. Just remember what I've told you about the edge of the forest. Don't wander there until I tell you that it's safe." Moro warned.

Ichi and Ni tore off as soon as they'd been dismissed, but it was Ichi who looked back when he couldn't hear the slow, beating footfall of his sister.

"San, aren't you coming?" he asked. Ni had also slowed to a stop by then, and turned his head to see they were waiting on their sister, and growled lightly in impatience.

Their sister in question was quickly tying thin strands of leather round deer hide wraps on her tiny feet. She'd barely finished softening then that morning, and was eager to test her invention. She stood, and after she was satisfied that they would not fall apart, she ran to catch up with her brothers.

"Is that what you made out of that skin and brains the other day?" Ichi asked once she'd caught up. San nodded, looking down happily at her shoes. Ni shot the hide shoes on her feet a glance, and huffed.

"I still think they look silly." he muttered. San shot him a warning look, and he turned away.

"I don't care, they feel nice." she said.

They walked on, heading deeper into the forest, because they could not play near the outskirts. The deeper they went into the forest, the taller the trees got. Occasionally a kodama would be interested enough in them to look down at them from high up in the treetops, or from behind the roots of a tree.

There were many smaller animals in the deep of the forest, but knowing the pup's tendencies to chase after everything that they found, all the mice and squirrels and things kept themselves hidden.

They stopped when they could see the lake, and the small island in its center. The kodama were especially active at the time, and the occasional rattling easily rang throughout the clearing.

After walking so long, the pups decided to stop there in the heart of the forest for a rest. The boys laid down on the grass, while San pulled off her shoes and rubbed her feet to see if the deer skin had indeed protected her from sharp rocks and cuts.

"It just isn't fair." Ni growled, laying down with his face on his paws. "Just because there were a few humans at the edge of the mountain, we aren't allowed to explore there."

"It's dangerous, you know that." Ichi reminded him.

"Of course I know that!" Ni snapped back. "But we weren't going to get hurt. We would have run if there'd been trouble."

"And what if we didn't run fast enough?" Ichi contested. Ni grumbled but didn't seem to have a retort.

"We shouldn't have to run." San muttered. Her brothers turned their attention to her, slightly surprised to hear her speak.

"Yeah, but you know what Mother says. We aren't-"

"I know; 'We aren't strong enough to hunt humans yet', but still," San said, sitting down and pulling her knees up to her chest. "I just _wish_ we were strong enough." Ichi looked away then, suppressing a similar feeling in his gut.

"Me too, but Mother knows best. We should trust her. Besides, what would she say if she knew that we'd gone off looking for humans?" Ni reasoned.

There wasn't much to say after that. They all knew that Mother would be absolutely livid if she found the three of them actively in search of human kind. Perhaps she would even be more livid finding them around any humans than she would be if they'd been playing around a fire.

Their mother had a right to be worried for them; after all, they were still only children. But they were also the children of a god, and as such it might simply have been natural for the pups to want to fight alongside her.

San laid her back down against the mossy grass and sighed. Hundreds of yards above her head there was an opening in the tree tops, where she could see the sky. It was through this opening that the Forest Spirit ascended into the night and became the nightwalker each and every evening.

Her moment of leisure was interrupted by the light flutter of wings. She sat up and cocked her head toward the sound. On the ground some poor creature scuffled about. A bluebird, by the look of it. She swiftly rolled over and onto her belly, and crawled slowly toward it. Her brothers looked up, seeing her sudden movement and raised their heads to see whatever had caught the attention of their sister.

When she neared it, it suddenly stopped flailing about, and was still. San froze, thinking it had seen her. Upon closer inspection, she found that the bird had a bleeding wing. It couldn't possibly fly away, and would be too weak and slow on the ground to outrun her should it choose to.

Though she was a bit hungry, she had no taste for birds. Her careful attention to the injured bird was attributed more so to her natural curiosity than to her instinctual craving for meat.

Seeing his sister hesitate to kill the bird, Ni offered to kill it for her. Ichi stood behind his brother, patiently allowing San time to make the kill. He was in no great hurry to eat at the time, and she'd found it first after all, so he was content to let her take her time.

"Well? Aren't you going to eat it?" Ni asked impatiently when she still did not move or speak.

San considered the creature for another moment. It certainly wasn't going anywhere. If neither she nor her brothers ate the thing, some fox or badger would likely come for it next. Her brothers watched with mild attention, Ichi seemed more disinterested, but Ni would surely jump at the chance to finish off the helpless creature.

But she didn't want to eat it. Not because she was particularly opposed to the idea, she just didn't like the taste of bird. Still, the kill was hers to make, and she would be foolish to let the opportunity slide, not knowing when she would next get the chance to eat.

The bird, shaking and staring up at the wolves seemed to recognize that it had no way to escape. It was then that the bluebird spoke, interrupting her silent contemplation. It pleaded for help, in the tiny desperate voice of the frightened bird that it was.

This was not the first time some poor creature had begged for life at the hands of a wolf, and it would not be the last. At times when she was hungry, the pleas meant nothing. But she wasn't hungry now, and there wouldn't be a point in taking life until she was.

San looked back down at the bluebird. It looked up at her expectantly. Perhaps it wouldn't be worth the effort. Maybe after showing mercy to it, the bird would only fly away as soon as it was well again. But there was just something nice about being asked for help, being depended on, relied on. It was a feeling she didn't have too often, what with her very capable brothers around.

Her brothers never needed her help, not really. They might occasionally benefit from her presence when they hunted, but they didn't always _need_ her help. But this bird did and she'd have longer to relish in it if she let it live.

"I'm… going to let it live." San decided as she lifted the bird up in her hands.

"What?! Oh come on! It's not going to live anyway, at least let me have a nibble. It won't need its wings anymore anyway." Ni argued, inching his mouth closer to the flightless bird.

"No! Didn't you already eat this morning anyway?" she said, holding the bluebird away from her impish brother, while simultaneously pushing her brother away with her free hand.

"I'm a young, growing, wolf, I need all the food I can get!" he argued, eyeing the morsel mischievously.

"If you want it to live, you'll have to do a lot more than just keep it from being eaten." Ichi said, speaking up unexpectedly.

"I know that." she said.

"So what do you plan to do? How will you make it better." Ni asked doubtfully.

San had no immediate answer. Truly, she didn't know how she would care for the bird before she picked it up. As she considered the answer, her gaze wandered from the bird, toward the lake, and the small island in its center.

* * *

><p>Moro had been pleasantly napping before the approach of her children caught her attention. How long had she been asleep? Judging by the sun's place in the very center of the sky, it hadn't been long enough.<p>

With a deep groan, she sat up to greet them. Her children were not especially needy for their age, but Moro swore she could remember a time once when she had the energy to raise pups.

Even her very first litter of pups had not been as tiresome as the three she cared for now. She'd had many many children in her lifetime, and they'd all of them grown into fine wolves. But it was becoming much too difficult to look after rambunctious puppies. Perhaps Ichi, Ni, and San, would be the last of her children. She was getting too old to have any more children.

San was carrying something in her hands when she came near. She seemed a bit excited with what she'd found, and Moro could only guess that it was some strange animal.

"Mother, I got this bird!" she said, opening up her cupped hands to reveal a frightened bluebird.

Moro eyed the thing, and sniffed it to be sure of what it was. "Good, now you can eat it." She mumbled, beginning to lay her head back down on her paws. Her daughter shook her awake again.

"No, I'm not going to eat it. I want it to live."

Moro eyed her daughter incredulously. "What in the world are you bringing it to me for, then?"

San nervously looked back down at the bird, and then back to her mother. "Well… I was hoping that you'd… ask the Forest Spirit to let it live." she said, suddenly unsure of herself.

The Wolf God suppressed a chuckle. "I don't know why it matters so much to you, San. It's only a bird."

San held the bird closer to her chest then, as if to protect it from the scorn of her mother. "It's _my_ bird, now." she said simply.

Moro raised the brow of her eye, and smiled lightly. "Well, if it means that much to you…" she trailed of, looking down at the thing in her hands. "I won't beg for the life of this creature, but I will teach you how to summon the Deer God on your own. That way you can feel free to ask him for yourself.

"First you'll need to make him an offering. Any dead thing will do, I suggest some young tree or flower. Then you wait. Wait and hope that the Forest Spirit decides your little friend should live. And that's it."

San looked down at the bird in her hands, seeming a bit disheartened. The look on her face did not go unnoticed by her mother. "You're wondering if its chances would be better if you just left it alone, aren't you?" San looked back up at her mother in surprise. Apparently she'd been right on the mark. "Well, do whatever you want to. But if you ask me, you've already involved yourself; you might as well finish what you've started."

"But what if the Forest Spirit doesn't let it live?" she asked.

Her mother was briefly in thought, as though she was considering the question carefully. After the pause, she spoke in that deep monotone growl that she always did, and said, "If that happens, you move on."

After that, the Wolf God walked away, to let her daughter do as she pleased to. Perhaps this experience would teach her something about the nature of life and death, something that she would need to learn one day anyway.

* * *

><p><strong> Sorry if the story feels like it's dragging on a bit, the next few chapters should be a bit more interesting. I hope that you'll all continue to stick around till the end. Really, all the support I'm getting really helps to motivate these updates. You guys are really nice! Be sure to tell me what you think about this chapter if you want to, I'd like to hear what you have to say!<strong>

**And in case your confused about the mention of the "Deer God", I referred to the Forest Spirit as such because in the original translation of the movie, Shinigami was translated as "Deer God" and not "Forest Spirit" like it is in the dub, and I wanted to alternate between the titles.**

** Also, I may up the rating for future chapters in this fic, just because things may get a bit violent pretty soon.**


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